Deion Sanders knows better than anyone that the Transfer Portal giveth, and can most certainly taketh away.
Sanders swooped into Boulder in December of 2022 and cleaned house. The newly introduced Head Coach at the University of Colorado kicked more than 70 football players to the proverbial curb – the vast majority of whom he’d never met – so he could bring in his own guys (his two sons included) via the portal. It was an instant transformation, even if it didn’t result in an immediate “worst to first” scenario. Before his arrival, CU was 1-11. In his first season, they went a slightly more respectable 4-8 before posting a 9-4 mark in 2024.
It was all about access to the portal.
This year other programs have caught on and caught up. The portal isn’t what it once was for the third year head coach. CU will most certainly be going that route again this off season, but now the focus will be just as much on keeping who he has as it will be trying to bring in experienced players he wants.
At the top of the “gotta keep ‘em here” list is CU’s true freshman quarterback Julian, Ju Ju Lewis.
Lewis was a five-star recruit who ditched the USC Trojans to sign with Colorado. He was third on the QB depth chart most of the season, but found himself starting the Buffs last game at West Virginia and acquitting himself well. Colorado sits at 3-7 and won’t be going bowling for a second consecutive season, but Buff Nation’s eyes will all be on the young QB and what he could represent for the future.
Lewis is very young, having skipped his senior season of high school football in Georgia to enroll in college a year early. But now that it appears he will end up playing in five games as a first year player, so he won’t get the benefit of a redshirt season. Instead, he’ll be a young and slightly more experienced sophomore in 2026.
The question is, will he still be a Colorado Buffalo at that point?
Now that he’s got some experience, and assuming he plays reasonably well in the Buffs final two games, Lewis will have options in terms of the portal and presumably more NIL money somewhere else. It should be noted that USC will be losing senior QB Jayden Maiava after this season.
There are three factors now that are changing the way the portal can impact a program. First, each school has a $20.5 million revenue-sharing budget that they are allowed to spread around among all the athletes in the various sports. So there’s just so much cash to go around. Second, the Transfer Portal window has shrunk, meaning decisions have to be made sooner and more definitively. And finally, with roster sizes being locked in at 105 for football (with still some wiggle room for current players who are ‘grandfathered’ in) teams can’t bring in everyone they want, including “preferred walk-ons,” any longer.
How this will all impact Lewis is unclear. Now that he’s the starter at Colorado, he may be perfectly content. His NIL & revenue sharing income could be everything he wants.
Or not.
It’s up to Sanders and his coaching staff – which will undoubtedly undergo some changes after the season – to convince their prized recruit to stay put, and to let any QB’s they might be interested in bringing to Boulder for the future that they already have a starter for the foreseeable future.
This time it’s Deion Sanders who has to adapt to the changes in college football.
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